The People yesterday ran an interview with the mother of Imogen Thomas in which she revealed her daughter apparently "carries a rape alarm at all times" because she fears public confrontation over an alleged affair with a married footballer. We were then told of Thomas: "Her confidence has gone completely... Her hair is falling out."

Then today the Daily Star claims to have its own Imogen Thomas "EXCLUSIVE" (screenshot, pictured right) which sounds more than a little familiar, for an "exclusive".

Updated: This post orginally made reference to a number of "scantily clad" photoshoots Imogen Thomas has recently done with tabloid newspapers and the bookmaker Paddy Power. These were mentioned because of the effect they have had in fanning the flames of publicity around a story which was apparently causing some distress for Thomas. However, a couple of readers have criticised mention of her attire and said the comments were sexist. This certainly wasn't the intention and we apologise to anybody who read it that way.

This post was intended to highlight the Daily Star's misleading use of the word "EXCLUSIVE". As such, we have removed the above remarks so as not to confuse the point being made, or cause any further inadvertent offence.

May 29, 2011

The Mirror has made a strong play for non-story of the week with revelations that a contestant on The Apprentice once WORE A BIKINI ON THE BEACH and LIKED A DRINK at university.

In one photo, Susan Ma is clearly pictured with her hair a little bit messed up, possibly after a night out (hold the front page!):

"She loved to drink and party, although she never touched drugs," said 'a friend' (not to be confused with somebody from The Mirror toiling to turn some unremarkable pictures into less of a non-story).

May 28, 2011

The Sunday Telegraph claims that Twitter has handed over the personal details of British users, setting what the paper claims could be an important precedent in at least one other high-profile case.

The case in question involves councillors from South Tyneside who claim they were libelled on the social network. The Telegraphtells us:

"For the first time, [Twitter] has bowed to a court action brought by a British group complaining that they were libelled in messages. The individuals who brought the legal action were councillors at a local authority, South Tyneside.

"They launched the case in an attempt to unmask an anonymous whistle-blower who calls himself Mr Monkey..."

Picture the scene: You are a coat maker. Your boyfriend's uncle is kind of a big deal on Twitter. In fact, he's got more than two-and-a-half-million followers and has just had an interview with Lady Gaga - the celebrity du jour - published in the FT. What's more, in the photographs he was wearing a jacket made by your own fair hands.

And then he Tweets the following...

You couldn't buy advertising like that. The window of opportunity is now wide open.

What a shame then that your website is unavailable ("New Version coming soon" - not soon enough I'd suggest) and your Twitter profile is a rather unloved affair that has not been updated for many months.

A number of newspapers have apparently declined to run this tasteful little ad (right), from bookmakers Paddy Power.

That is no doubt great news for Paddy Power.

Because while a good advert can help a company raise its profile quite considerably an advert that gets 'banned' works so much better. After all, not only has the Guardian run the full advert online today but Paddy Power didn't even have to pay them*.

Paddy Power clearly weren't about to point this out.

Speaking to the Guardian, a spokesman did a good job of pretending this exposure was somehow inconvenient.

"When an ad gets pulled at the last minute it's all hands on deck," he guffawed added.

"Revealed: Royal Honeymoon secrets" boasts a front page photo caption on the Telegraph today, above a picture of William and Kate, relaxing on a yacht:

But anybody buying the paper on that apparent promise is soon let down, as the Telegraph isn't just misleading this morning, it's also a little bit sanctimonious. Because, reading on, it turns out the long lens shot they have used on the front page is actually from 2006 (that's OK then). There are shots of the honeymoon (not like that) doing the rounds though and the Telegraph has even seen them, it says, but opted not to publish them "out of respect" for the couple's privacy.

Honeymoon paradise

The paper's online headline takes even greater liberties with the truth: "Royal wedding: A peek into royal couple's honeymoon paradise" it claims. It seems the Telegraph wants the traffic and the readership that goes with invading the couple's privacy. It just doesn't want to pay for the photos.

Last month we criticised the People for a wilfully misleading front page - or should that be 'Willsfully misleading', as they claimed to have photos of the royal stag do yet hadn't. It seems though the Telegraph at least liked the cut of their jib.

May 27, 2011

In 2008 a Daily Mail editorial complained, in no uncertain terms, about the homogenisation of the great British high street:

"All the things that make our cities, towns and villages different and special are being eroded. Homogenisation - the same chains in every high street - is the story of our age.

"The distinctive is replaced by the bland, the organic by the manufactured, the human by the impersonal. The ancient and the quirky are being bulldozed to make way for the clean, the progressive, the corporate. Everywhere is becoming the same as everywhere else.

"And no one's permission is being sought, not yours or mine. The world is being cleaned up and flattened out without a by-your-leave. Giant multinational companies dominate almost every area of national life..."

So what is the Mail doing to combat this creeping homogenisation?

Why, by giving its readers 50% off at Ask, Bella Italia, La Tasca, Strada, Zizzi and a whole host of high street restaurant chains.

May 25, 2011

I'm still hoping this is a spoof but The Guardian has run an article on its website, discussing the issue of injunction busters on Twitter, which has certainly got people talking (342 comments and counting). It's written by a character called Richard Hillgrove who we're told is "a business and political public relations consultant". It hinges on an almighty "say what now?!?" of a sentence. It begins:

"The central point here is whether Twitter and Facebook, as publishers of content, should be as accountable as traditional media..."

Fair enough. But it goes on:

"Clearly, they are going to have to introduce a delay mechanism so that content can be checked before it goes up..."

Er... ok...

That'll be "clearly" as in "clearly the moon is made of cheese", or "clearly the lost Kingdom of Atlantis must be favourites for the next World Cup".

With around 3,000 multilingual tweets per second at busy times, of which a barely negligible amount may be contentious, we can safely say having tens of thousands of people just approving Tweets around the clock is clearly not the answer.

May 22, 2011

BBC Social Media Summit, London: From a failure to engage with readers (rather than simply broadcast links and headlines at them) to a lack of buy-in across the organisation, some media companies have hit a number of hurdles as they attempt to fully integrate social media into newsgathering and community building.

Speaking at the BBC Social Media Summit, Peter Horrocks, head of global news at the BBC, said one wake up call for his own organisation came earlier this year when a joint interview for Christine Amanpour from ABC News and Jeremy Bowen from the BBC, with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, became known as ABC's scoop. This was simply because Amanpour was tweeting about the interview within seconds of it ending (right), while Bowen's involvement became lost in the hiatus between completing the interview and it being broadcast later that day.

Horrocks said this incident enforced a realisation that "using social media... should no longer be peripheral."

But this requires cultural change, which in some cases comes from a standing start, he said:

"Many people in newsrooms live in the moment. Their great skill is being reactive and responsive to the news and they're not necessarily interested in concepts and visions and thinking ahead about the future of journalism."

Meg Pickard, head of digital engagement at The Guardian, said the right approach to initiating the required cultural change looks a little like "a sandwich" with top-down and bottom-up influence required - and no doubt some meat in the middle:

"In order to get social media to be successful within an organisation you need to have a clear mandate and support from above. You need to have your senior leadership team to say this is important and this is something it is OK to spend time doing. In fact not just OK, this is something you need to spend time doing.

"But you also need the bottom bit. You need to find organic grassroots activity happening throughout the rest of the organisation, nurture it support it, point at it, let peers insipire each other."

One of the most encouraging practical steps being taken by any publisher, announced at the BBC Social Media Summit by Liz Heron, social media editor of the New York Times, is the switching off of the newspaper's autofeed of headlines into its main Twitter account.

"Next week we're going to turn off our autofeed and go hardcore engagement, replying to people from the main account, retweeting people outside the New York Times and asking questions."

That addresses a major stumbling block for many media outlets who have taken an almost deliberately antisocial approach to social media. A number of UK papers would do well to take note.

BBC Social Media Summit, London: One of the most contentious things said at Friday's BBC Social Media Summit was by Raju Narisetti, managing editor of the Washington Post, who declared that when it comes to journalism: "Numbers are everything".

"Numbers are everything in our business. The more readers we can get to our content the better it is for our journalism and the better it is for our business."

For any publication looking to offset the slow death of their print publication, the allure of big numbers online is obvious. He may also be right that it is good for business, certainly in the short term. Just look at the runaway success of the Daily Mail's website since it reinvented itself as a low rent celebrity gossip site, stuffed full of pictures of stars in their bikinis, alongside up-skirt and down-top paparazzi photos of reality TV stars.

In search of pure online numbers the Mail has traded in any values its masthead still stands for in the minds of those people who buy the newspaper in the quiet villages of conservative Britain.

Kim Kardashian

And while it is difficult to cast either extreme of the Mail's split personality as quality journalism, it is clear that simply chasing clicks with pics and key words is not. For example, a Google search for US socialite and 'home movie' star "Kim Kardashian" on the Daily Mail website returns 186,000 results. A search for "Kim Kardashian"+"bikini" returns just 1,000 fewer - 185,000 results - which is still more than results for "David Cameron" and "Gordon Brown" put together.

Of course Narisetti is not saying the Washington Post - most famous for Woodward and Bernstein's historic Watergate investigations - is about to add itself to the growing scrum of online gutter press. But you only need look at the disproportionate amount of coverage given to click-friendly stories such as a new Apple gadget launching, for example, to know that even the high-brow mainstream have worked out the value of SEO. And let's not even mention Pippa Middleton's bottom.

As well as what to write, Narisetti also said he is using data "to work out what not to do".

That does make some business sense. If something doesn't get read, the business man or woman in all of us would say 'don't write about that again'. But to assume that even this approach doesn't impact the quality of the journalistic output is to assume that all important news would also have the good grace to be popular news.

A pure numbers-based approach also doesn't allow for an acknowledgement that no two audiences are the same or for a degree of sophistication in advertising and subscription models.Though to be fair to Narisetti he only had a few minutes on stage and couldn't really get drawn into a debate on pure numbers versus the right numbers (small audiences can be highly profitable, when the small audience are high net worth individuals).

Twitter and Facebook

At the heart of Narisetti's argument though is a fundamental truth. All content producers need to go out and court readers and engage with them in social channels. They can no longer assume it is enough to make content available - whatever the quality - and trust people to find their own way. That means ecouraging all journalists to understand that their responsibility doesn't end with hitting 'save' on their story. Journalists must be on Facebook and Twitter he said:

"When 650 million people are on Facebook your content has to be there. Our Facebook referrals are up 300% year-on-year and when you show [journalists] that, and show them our Twitter referrals are up 170% then it makes a lot of sense for the journalists who are driven by ego and having more people read their stories."

"I think if you're applying for a job in the newsroom and you don’t have a Twitter or a Facebook account then you probably won’t get hired."

That is certainly true. Publishers just need to remember the subtle differences between getting more readers to their content and producing content purely to bring in more readers. Somewhere between the two lies a dividing line marked 'quality journalism'.

May 21, 2011

Earlier this week, a leading media lawyer told The Media Blog it was "only a matter of time" before the courts attempt to make an example of superinjunction-busters on Twitter, adding it will likely be "sooner rather than later".

Then yesterday that time arrived as the courts ruled that a professional footballer and his legal representation should be able to pursue individuals who have breached the terms of his privacy injunction by revealing his name online.

"Action absolutely can be taken against Twitter users who leak the details of a superinjunction," says Steve Kuncewicz, intellectual property and media solicitor at Gateley LLP, whose prediction earlier this week proved so timely. "But a claimant will need to do a fair amount of work to find out who's really behind their misfortune if the account is anonymous."

Twitter

That puts the ball squarely in Twitter's court - unless injunction-busters start turning themselves in. The social networking company will need to decide whether it wants to stand its ground and protect its users' identities or whether it wants to risk a major public backlash by handing over users to the authorities.

If it doesn't play ball Kuncewicz says "Twitter could also be sued for damages". However, "the chances of that happening are low", he says, not least because the UK courts have limited powers when it comes to action against companies and individuals outside the EU.

"Claimants have the option of obtaining a "Motley Fool" order to force a third party such as Twitter or an ISP to reveal the actual identity of whoever is behind a post," said Kuncewicz. "If the details can be obtained then taking action against the person responsible for both breach of privacy and contempt of court is a very viable option."

May 18, 2011

In these competitive times we're all accustomed to seeing newspapers promote a free gift beneath the masthead. Yesterday it was a Greggs' doughnut for every Express reader for example. But today The Times has upped the ante considerably:

May 17, 2011

In recent weeks it has seemed as though taking out a privacy injunction achieves little more for an underfire celebrity than putting them on a fast track to overnight notoriety and amplifying the very story they were trying to suppress.

A host of names have been linked with so called 'super injunctions' and it seems no sooner is one granted than it begins to crumble on contact with social media.

So are such injunctions a spent force in the days of Twitter?

Understandably the legal profession is quick to say 'no', pointing out that a few revelations on Twitter do not change the fact the vast majority of such injunctions remain intact. Similarly, one lawyer claimed it's "only a matter of time" before the courts make an example of social media injunction-busters in an attempt to dampen online chatter.

But social media has undoubtedly changed the game.

Niri Shan, head of media law at Taylor Wessing, told The Media Blog: "If I was advising a client now, I would have to tell them there is a chance it will come out in some way. Then not only would they have to deal with whatever it was they wanted to keep private in the first place but also the resulting flak which comes from effectively challenging people to out them. It may be though that it buys them time to get their house in order."

Twitter

Danvers Baillieu, senior associate at Pinsent Masons, acknowledged that while privacy claims "often fan the flames of publicity" they remain popular with those able to afford them.

"A super-injunction can backfire, but if it doesn't there is little downside apart from the cost," he said.

It is estimated there are currently more than 50 super injunctions still in place, some dating back many years. Of those, the identities of only a few claimants are purported to be common knowledge on social networks. As Baillieu points out the odds then are still very much in the claimant's favour.

And those odds may improve if courts can ever tackle the erosion of such injunctions on social media sites such as Twitter.

Steve Kuncewicz, intellectual property and media solicitor at Gateley LLP, said: "The courts are now getting to grips with social media and its effect on their orders, and they'll be getting a grip of a recalcitrant Tweeter sooner rather than later."

"If the owner of a Twitter account can be traced, then they can be pursued for contempt of court. Although no-one so far has been brought to book over the recent revelations it's only a matter of time before the Courts make an example out of someone. Offline law applies to the online world and you can only hide behind a profile picture for so long."

Kuncewicz concluded: "Superinjunctions can still work, but the chances of them working in isolation without action being taken to deal with online activity is pretty low."

May 15, 2011

You can say what you like about Toby Young but the man has principles. On Friday he wrote for The Telegraph urging people to attend an event in London called The Rally Against Debt.

"All those who care about Britain's future should attend the Rally Against Debt," he wrote.

This was a get together for those keen to see the government make deeper public sector spending cuts than those already proposed. Their message was 'Pull The Ladder Up Gideon, we're alright!'

And it's fair to say it got the attendance it deserved. Just 350 people.

All the more credit then to Young for sharing his public support for something so unpopular.

"I'm hoping to attend the rally..." he wrote.

Except he didn't quite make it due a prior engagement with a pirate exhibition at the Museum of London (clearly with a young family such things must take precedent over "Britain's future"). The rally started at 11am and the whole sorry affair had fizzled out before 1pm when Young tweeted the below:

May 14, 2011

We Tweeted about this remarkable front page of the New York Post earlier today. Understandably some people seem to doubt it is genuine. We assure you it is (you can search for it yourself at www.newseum.org):

While "wanking" in the US isn't quite the same swearword it is here at English Language HQ, there's no doubt it's a surprising headline for any mainstream newspaper to run. Elsewhere the Post is arguably trying a little too hard in its attempts to ridicule Bin Laden. No matter how hard you try there's just no saving this awful headline or its broken pun from the Post's website:

May 08, 2011

When it was reported recently that the Daily Mail had become the world's second most popular newspaper website, it got me thinking about what the daily 'audience' of our UK newspapers now looks like. The below graphic shows the topline, combining actual ABC newspaper circulation figures, ABCe online circulation figures and social media fans and followers of named publication accounts (excluding individual journalist's personal followings). It of course doesn't allow for some very obvious crossovers between the three (or the degree to which some social media followers may be lapsed or rarely online), but still provides an interesting snapshot of how newspapers have evolved their audiences in recent times:One thing really stands out from this snapshot with regards the evolution taking place - and it is typified by the major differences between the top two on the chart. The Daily Mail - the biggest player in online and print - has a relatively small social following. And clearly it doesn't appear to be suffering as a result. (As discussed earlier this week the Daily Mail has taken to Twitter very ineffectively).

The Mail's online focus on celebrity gossip and candid shots of scantily clad stars is clearly working well in generating search engine traffic from outside its traditional readership (how many right wing pensioners in middle England know or care who Kim Kardashian is?).

The Guardian meanwhile has almost as many social media fans and followers as it has daily visitors to its website (give or take a few hundred thousand) - so compared to the Daily Mail's runaway success it's clearly growing a smaller but arguably more loyal, more engaged and more focussed community of online readers and followers (even if we assume a high number of its social media followers are lapsed or rarely active) within the boundaries of well established 'brand values'. That's not say all sections of the traditional paper have grown equally in the online world - the Guardian's social following is skewed considerably by the 1.6 million followers of @GuardianTech - but those followers know the content promoted there is clearly an extension of the Guardian's brand.

A simple comparison of content (there are very few 'upskirt' shots of Lady Gaga on the Guardian's website) and overall numbers tells us the Guardian draws in considerably fewer readers via search than the Mail, but assuming it has a far higher percentage of readers navigating to its website via branded Guardian Twitter feeds than any rival, there is a case for saying its brand has more effectively weathered the evolution taking place. It has grown and remained intact. The Mail has changed the brand values its traditional readers would associate with the paper in order to court the pure numbers the media's evolution can deliver. Both of course are proving to be viable models.

Less sustainable will be those brands which have currently done little to mitigate falling print circulation with any notable great strides taken online.

(Updated 9/5/2011: The graph has now been updated after a recount of followers of the Times' Twitter accounts.)

May 06, 2011

You may be surprised to hear the Daily Mail is the most prolific UK newspaper on Twitter - or at least it is if you're after quantity, rather than quality of tweets each day. However, its tendency to simply tweet out links and headlines - predominantly in bursts of activity - is clearly doing little to attract followers in their droves to its primary Twitter account, as the following graphic of Tweets per day to followers shows [click to enlarge]:

Of course there is more to the Daily Mail's inability to attract a large audience on Twitter than its approach to when it tweets and how often, such as tenure and the fact the readership it has aggressively courted in the past is unlikely to be in the vanguard of Twitter users (though let's not forget the Mail's website attracts more traffic than any rival, so this should be no forlorn hope). But it isn't alone in running to stand still. The Express and Star have also recruited relatively few followers despite fairly high levels of, albeit similarly unstrategic, Tweets. The Guardian and the FT meanwhile have engaged far more followers with a 'less is more' approach to Tweets - and that is without analysing secondary accounts such as the Guardian's hugely popular @GuardianTech account.

When it comes to efficiency there's nothing more efficient than getting somebody else to do the work for you - or in the case of Twitter get other people to retweet your efforts to an ever larger audience. So how do our national papers fare in the global retweet stakes?

The Independent - perhaps surprisingly - has a better strike rate than any of the competition in terms of getting its tweets retweeted and alongside the Guardian and the Telegraph is in the top 5,000 most commonly retweeted accounts globally according to RetweetRank.com [click to enlarge]:

Note: these statistics were gathered using a number of free online tools and they will date rapidly. We also also accept we've barely scratched the surface in explaining the multiple factors which could also be considerations in understanding efficiency, so consider these as being indicative of trends and perhaps not much more.